Date of Award

January 2012

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Counseling Psychology & Community Services

First Advisor

Kara B. Wettersten

Abstract

This study contributed to the expanding field of research examining the various aspects of White privilege attitudes. This study extended White privilege research by incorporating the predictive relationships of multicultural efficacy, multicultural empathy, multicultural experience, and multicultural training in assessing White privilege attitudes among a sample of White resident hall directors (N =206). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used in the current study to examine the mediating effect of multicultural efficacy on White privilege attitudes measured by the White Privilege Attitude Scale, Psychosocial Costs of Racism to Whites, and Color Blind Racial Attitudes Scale. Goodness of fit was not found for the hypothesized model. However, additional correlation analyses (multiple regressions and univariate correlations) revealed that multicultural empathy, rather than multicultural efficacy, is a significant predictor of all the White privilege attitudes measured by the WPAS, PCRW, and CoBRAS. Recommendations for future research and multicultural training efforts in residence life are discussed.

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